Researchers from Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences have discovered
Double crest of Europe (left) in the image,image taken by the Galileo mission and the Greenland Twin Ridge (right) in a WorldView-3 satellite image taken in July 2018. Source: Riley Culberg et al., Nature Communications
With radar penetrating through the icescientists collected data on a double ridge located 60 km from the edge of the shield in northwestern Greenland. Based on the analysis of the results of the study, the scientists showed that the formation of such a structure in the ice surface of Greenland is associated with shallow cavities located at a shallow depth below the ice surface.
Researchers believe that during the formationcracks in the surface of the ice, water from the internal cavity under pressure rushes upward. The refreezing of the water that filled the crack leads to a redistribution of pressure and the formation of a double ridge of the form that has been found in Greenland and Europe.
People have been studying these twin ridges for over 20 years,but for the first time we were able to see something like this on Earth and show how nature works its magic. We are taking a big step in understanding what processes actually dominate the physics and dynamics of the Europa ice sheet.
Gregor Steinbrugge, study co-author, planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mechanism of double ridge formation. Source: Riley Culberg et al., Nature Communications
As the researchers note, Europa is one of the main candidates for the existence of extraterrestrial life.For decades, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of Jupiter's moon's ocean.However, the dense ice shell with a thickness of 20 to 30 km significantly hampered the study.
Double ridges, giant slits in the surface, were discovered on Europa during the Galileo mission, but the resulting images did not answer the question of how such structures formed.
Stanford researchers believe that the shellEuropa is not a huge block of immobile ice, but a changing system that is influenced by many geological and hydrological processes. The authors of the work believe that the ice structure may not be a barrier, but a potential habitat for living organisms.
Since they (water cavities, approx.High-tech) are closer to the surface, where various chemicals come from space, from other satellites and from Io volcanoes, life has a chance if there are cavities with water in the shell. If the mechanism that we see in Greenland is similar to how it happens in Europa, it turns out that there is water on the entire satellite.
Dustin Schroeder, study co-author, associate professor of geophysics at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences
Scientists emphasize that their explanation of howdouble ridges are formed, so complex that they could not imagine it without an analogue on Earth. The results of the study provide a radar signature for rapid detection of the double ridge formation process. Such studies are planned for future NASA missions to explore Europe.
Cover photo: NASA/JPL/DLR
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